For the Protection and Safety of Peaceful Protests

Gov. Asa Hutchinson said he has had meetings with participants of some of the recent mass assemblies to
discuss solutions to their concerns. (KATV)

by Governor Asa Hutchinson: We saw peaceful protests, and unfortunately, some violence and criminal behavior across Arkansas this week. Today, I’d like to talk about our duty to protect free expression and the proper response of law enforcement when there is violence or destruction of property.

The death of George Floyd at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer is a travesty and a crime. The image of him lying face down on the street as an officer pinned him there with a knee on his neck is deeply disturbing.

His cries of “I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe.” will rightly haunt our collective conscience for a long time.

I understand the anger that compelled people to take up posters and march to the state capitol and in various cities in Arkansas. We share in their sorrow and acknowledge their anger and their demand for justice.

I’ve listened to members of the community. I hear their cries for change. We will continue to talk and seek solutions. As governor, I will protect your right to march and express yourself in whatever peaceful and lawful way you choose.

Ninety-five percent of the protesters in Little Rock this week marched peacefully. The police officers who were standing by were there to make sure the protesters were safe. When they blocked the interstate and put themselves and others in harm’s way, officers encouraged them to move.

Each night, as the hour grew later, a few in the crowd did things that put others at risk. They poured flammable liquids on the road and set them afire. They threw fireworks. They threw rocks and bottles at police. They broke windows, beat a journalist, and destroyed property. That’s when the police responded.

On Saturday, I activated the National Guard. On Tuesday, I declared a state of emergency, which directed the State Police to form a Unified Command structure so that all levels of law enforcement could work together. The Unified Command respects the chain of command from the city police departments to the state police to the National Guard. It simply created and defined a chain of command for a specific need in a troubled time in our state.

Three nights in a row, police had to disperse the crowd. Many protesters ignored the curfew that Mayor Frank Scott, Jr. had put in place. Even then, officers showed restraint. But as some in the crowd grew more aggressive and began to set fires and throw rocks through store windows, police had to act. They had to stop the lawbreakers and protect the peaceful protesters.

When I saw the violence increase on Monday night, I knew we couldn’t let that happen again. The rule of law is important to us all. Tuesday night, nine agencies from all levels of government participated in the patrol, and officers quickly contained the elements of the crowd who were there only to coordinate and motivate destructive behavior. They were there to confront police and destroy property. They didn’t care that their violence might overshadow the message of the peaceful marchers.

When protesters march in Arkansas to express their grief and anger, we must protect them and their right to peacefully speak their mind.

When the protest turns into violence and vandalism, we must protect everyone else. That’s what we did this week.
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Arkansas Governor Hutchinson's Weekly Address.

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The George Floyd Culprit No One's Talking About

by Tony Perkins: Derek Chauvin was no saint. That much was known long before his knee crushed the life out of George Floyd. After racking up 17 complaints in 19 years, the question most people have is -- what was he still doing on the police force anyway? If we can stand the answer, it would go a long way to getting some of these bad people off the beat. But it would also mean taking a long hard look at the power of unions in this country. And for some people, that's a bridge too far.

"Maybe it's finally time to consider the role that police unions play in perpetuating police brutality," John Fund urges on NRO. "Mayor de Blasio has frequently tangled with his city's powerful unions, but he's never challenged their vast political power. And make no mistake, that power is often used to cover up and deflect charges of police misconduct." He quoted a retired NYPD commander, who'd written a memoir called, Once a Cop. "The unions, at least in New York City, outright just protect, protect, protect the cops," Corey Pegues said. "It's a blanket system of covering up police officers."

As far as he and others are concerned, it's the rise of those unions that have helped people like Chauvin escape responsibility. Greg Phares, retired Baton Rouge Police Chief, talked about the Minneapolis police culture on "Washington Watch" and how its union contract is very restrictive where disciplinary matters are concerned. And what most people don't realize, he said, is that "Under a union system and a civil service system, an officer has a right to his job. And it is very difficult to intervene early and get rid of a guy who, in this case, certainly appears to have been a troubled cop and certainly seems to be exhibited that early on. And it clearly was not dealt with."

Now, obviously, the vast majority of men and women who serve in uniform do so to protect and serve the public. They go in with the right motives. But it's a tough job, and unfortunately, some people can become hardened to it. That's something, as a former police officer, I know we have to watch out for -- especially in today's environment. It's a problem that needs to be addressed. "A vast, vast majority -- probably 95-plus percent -- of the law enforcement officers, sheriffs' deputies, municipal police officers, and state troopers are excellent public servants," Greg insisted. "[They] do not use excessive force... But again, harking back to your career as well as mine... it's the small percentage that poisons police agencies if you don't deal with it."

And the effects of that aren't just what we're seeing on television. The consequences are reverberating throughout the next generation with young men and women who are watching these riots and deciding they don't want a career in law enforcement.

"What you want in a police agency, sheriff's office, [or] municipal police department are young men and women who have other choices -- who are talented, who are educated, and who have the right moral character, and want to serve." But now, they're almost certainly coming under pressure from wives, girlfriends, parents, who say, "Do you really want to go into that? Do you really want to take that chance of being killed or maimed, sued? Or have your career ended under bad circumstances? Don't you think it's better if you try something else?" So what happens, Greg shakes his head, is these police departments "have a very bad pool to choose from." "Now you have more cops that are not exactly what you need. It's just a row of dominoes going down. It's not good for the public, not good for the police profession, not good for the city or county."
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Tony Perkins (@tperkins) is President of the Family Research Council . Article on Tony Perkins' Washington Update and written with the aid of FRC senior writers.

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Biggest Jobs Gain Ever, The Left's Warped Worldview, Barr Targets Antifa

Gary Bauer

by Gary Bauer: Biggest Jobs Gain Ever
This morning's report on May's unemployment rate shocked experts everywhere. Instead of rising to 20% or more, it actually fell to 13.3%.

Not one major financial expert thought jobs would already be coming back. CNBC, the Wall Street Journal, and virtually all other media mouthpieces were embracing the voices of despair rather than optimism.

Instead of a bleak Depression-era report, we learned that 2.5 million jobs were created last month – the biggest monthly jobs increase ever!

That does not mean we are out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination. We still have a long way to go to fully recover. But it does mean that President Trump's optimism is justified and his policies are working.

It is worth noting that the jobs figures being reported reflect what was happening in the country before the riots began. We don't yet know just how much damage was done by the left's shock troops in the streets.

While there will no doubt be bumps in the road as we recover from this unprecedented shutdown, this is proof of just how dynamic our economy is, in spite of the best efforts of determined socialists, when it is led by political leadership that understands how economies work.

Today, we got a glimpse of what our future could be with the right leadership in office. Next, you will get a glimpse of what our future could be with different people in office.

The Left's Warped Worldview
As we get to this last day of this tumultuous week, I want to share a few examples of the sickness and barely disguised evil that permeates left-wing progressive politics, and, just as disturbingly, some examples of cowardice in the face of it.

• The Minneapolis city council is voting today on the first steps toward "dismantling" its police force. Polls show that only 16% of Americans support this nonsense. (Incredibly, that's still millions of Americans!) Meanwhile, the overwhelming majority of black Americans are at least somewhat satisfied with their local police departments.
• Salmah Rizvi, a former Obama intelligence official, guaranteed the $250,000 bail for Urooj Rahman, who was arrested in New York City for throwing a Molotov cocktail through the window of a police car. Rizvi told the judge that Rahman is her "best friend."
• Disney is all in for "social justice," donating $5 million to various progressive causes after it just laid off 100,000 workers. (Hopefully, many of them were recently rehired or soon will be.) Sadly, the company has kowtowed to the racist Chinese Communist Party. Yes, China is a very racist society.
• Some "health experts" are blaming "white supremacy" for the coronavirus. Have you heard about Dr. Kizzmekia Corbett?
• Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said, "Yes, America is burning, but that's how forests grow." How much more "growing" can our country take in the name of "progress"?
• Churches and synagogues have been set on fire or vandalized in dozens of us cities this week. I am not aware of one prominent Democrat or progressive leader who has condemned the attacks on houses of worship. But Trump is being condemned for showing his solidarity with our houses of worship.
• Some of the churches and synagogues had swastikas spray painted on them. Progressives pointed to that as evidence that neo-Nazis were among the rioters. No, the leftists who vandalized the buildings were implying that the people who worshipped there are Nazis.
• Speaking of Nazis, Debra Messing tweeted a photo of Trump holding a Bible next to a photo of Hitler holding a Bible. Her message was that Trump's visit to the historic St. John's Church was a dog whistle to neo-Nazis all over America. The photo is a fake. Hitler wasn't a Christian. He was an avowed pagan. He didn't like the Bible because it was "too Jewish."
• Look who is celebrating the riots and protests – China, Iran, Turkey and Russia. That America's enemies are cheering what so many progressives are applauding speaks volumes.
• Drew Brees was forced to apologize for his insensitivity. What did he say? He said that while he supports social justice, he will never support disrespecting our flag or national anthem. Is that what we have come to now as a nation – apologizing for our patriotism?
• Brees wasn't the only one browbeaten into submission. A Philadelphia diner offered police a free meal after a night of rioting. The owners have now apologized.
• The New York Times apologized after publishing an opinion piece by Sen. Tom Cotton supporting the use of troops to restore order.This is the same New York Times that has accepted columns by Vladimir Putin and allowed Taliban terrorists to defend sharia law in its paper. America's "paper of record" will give a platform to our enemies but not a conservative senator? Free speech is under siege.
• Democrat politicians are swearing off donations from law enforcement unions, and donating those contributions to radical left-wing groups, as if all cops are criminals.
• Even your children are not spared from this insanity. Lego pulled promotions of its building sets featuring police, first responders and the White House.

I'll leave you to ponder this thought over the weekend.

Democrat leaders in multiple cities and states are against bringing in the military. They reluctantly deployed the National Guard only after President Trump shamed them. They ordered their own police officers to stand down and to stop making arrests and enforcing curfews. Think about that.

The damage done to our cities is well into the billions. So many have lost so much. Imagine what it would have been like if the National Guard had not been brought in as the president insisted.

Imagine what it could be like next time if the progressive left is in power and a different president isn't demanding a return to law and order.

Barr Targets Antifa
In a powerful address yesterday, Attorney General William Barr made it clear that Antifa was playing a lead role in stoking the recent violence in order to "terrify fellow citizens and intimidate communities."

The FBI must pursue Antifa with as much vigor as it pursued Michael Flynn, Roger Stone, Paul Manafort, Carter Page and Donald Trump!
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Gary Bauer (@GaryLBauer)  is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

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Should Federal Military Forces Be Engaged In A National Civil Disturbance Crisis?

Marvin L. Covault, Lt.Gen (Ret)

by Marvin L. Covault, Lt.Gen (Ret): I know, this is too long. But a couple days ago I received an email from a highly respected former boss and long-time friend. The use of military forces in the on-going crisis is a current question that perhaps I should attempt to answer because, he reminded me, I am the only senior commander that has done this in the past 50 years. So, I will use Thomas Jefferson’s excuse; when finished writing a long letter to a friend, he apologized for its length, saying, “if I would have had more time it would be shorter.”

Background: March, 1991 the nation saw, on film, five white LA police officers brutally beat a black gentleman, Rodney King.

While all of us had viewed the taped beating over and over in great close-up detail, a year later those five white police officers were found not guilty by an all-white jury. That verdict was announced at 3:15 p.m. 29 April, 1992 and Los Angeles erupted, most particularly in South/Central LA.

The final tally was as follows: 55 killed, over 2000 injured, about $1 Billion dollars is damages, over 10,000 rioters were directly involved in looting and destruction, over 1000 buildings seriously damaged or destroyed, the fire department responded to more than 4000 fires. This was not taking place at 5th and Elm street; it covered an area of about 100 square miles of built-up urban terrain; by far the most difficult terrain in which to operate. The largest riot in US history.

At the time I was the commander of the 7th Infantry Division (2-star position) at Ft Ord CA about 350 miles north of LA. 7th ID, by design, was the most rapidly deployable division in the world.

President George H.W. Bush had already dispatched 1000 Federal riot-trained law enforcement officials, FBI SWAT teams, special riot control units of the US Marshals Service, Border Patrol, Bureau of Prisons personnel and other Federal law enforcement agencies.

At about the 36-hour point, May the 1st at about 2 a.m. we, 7th ID, received a call from our military higher headquarters in Atlanta, and were told, “a military force may be needed in LA but don’t do anything yet.” Dumb order, we immediately began to plan for a rapid deployment. Six hours later at about 0800 we received a second call, “there will be a military deployment but it will not be the 7th ID.” CNN was following everything related to the riots live and continuously.

Thirty minutes later we watched President Bush, live on TV, walk into the White House Briefing Room and announce, “I have decided to deploy the 7th ID to LA to help secure the city.” Game on. By the next morning we had 12,000 Soldiers and Marines (from nearby Camp Pendleton) deployed in LA and I was in charge of the entire mess.

Later on, in a meeting with President Bush, he told me he had received a phone call from his long-time friend, California Governor Pete Wilson who had told him he wanted the 7th ID to immediately deploy to LA. So, he said, I just went to the briefing room and made the announcement. Everyone in the military chain of command heard it at the same time I did.

Interestingly, the president’s words, “…deploy and help secure the city” were the first, last and only words of guidance I received zero elaboration from my three-star boss, four-star boss, Army Chief of Staff or the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff. Why no guidance? Because they knew I had spent 29 years training, studying, and being mentored to be ready for that moment. They also knew that the biggest enemy of crisis planning and execution is time. There isn’t enough of it and they all knew the last thing I needed was someone looking over my shoulder and grading my work.

The keys to success in dealing with a crisis are to lean on your strengths, avoid your weaknesses at all costs (to include weak leaders) and decentralize execution.

Two hours after the president’s announcement the deployment was underway and by noon, I was on the ground in LA with a skeleton planning staff. What became immediately apparent was that no ONE was in charge of the multitude of federal, state and local agencies involved. All I could see and sense was chaos. And most concerning was that the California National Guard was streaming into the city with no deployment plan in place.

I called back to Ft Ord and had a dozen of the Division’s best “iron majors” (experienced, mature, articulate officers) flown in the first afternoon and I assigned them as my personal liaison to the Governor, Mayor, Chief of Police Gates, Sheriff Block, Highway Patrol, all the Federal Agencies, the CA National Guard and the Marines. Before dispatching them, I looked them in the eye and told them exactly what they were to do. “You stay about 3 feet from your principal at all times and tell me everything they do, everything they say and who they communicate with. There can be only one boss of this mess and it’s me. You understand?”

Their first mission was to get their principal on a conference call with me that afternoon at which time I gave the participants my first deployment briefing and told them to thereafter be on a conference call with me at 8 a.m. every day wherein I would give them an overall assessment of the night’s activities and what was to be accomplished in the next 6, 12 or 24 hours. Principals only on the conference call. The Governor was not amused about the “principals only” part and it got a little ugly but it worked.

As if President Bush’s surprise deployment announcement at 0830 that morning wasn’t enough; he saved another one for later in the day. At 6 p.m. CA time, President Bush presented an update briefing to the nation. First topic of the speech was, “I have decided to Federalize the California National Guard.” At that moment, with those words, I became the Commander of the CA National Guard and they all became federal US Army soldiers. That was actually a blessing because we immediately took charge of their rally points, established training stations (particularly to train rules of engagement) and integrated them into the overall deployment plan.

My purpose here is not to necessarily criticize Governors, Mayors, Police Chiefs, etc in the cities recently being burned and looted but rather to explain why it can make sense to consider deployment of federal military forces early in the crisis.

First of all, none of the on-scene leaders, governors and mayors have years of experience in crisis-action planning or execution. The US military does, from top to bottom. So having a senior military leader on the scene and in charge with all the assets of the Defense Department at their disposal can be a value-added game changer.

It became obvious the past few days watching and listening to the city and state leaders as the riots got worse and deadlier, that no ONE was in charge. If no ONE person is in charge, no one is in charge. If no one is in charge there is no plan. That was the situation I found in LA in 1992 and it is what became very obvious as I listened to the governors/mayors/police chiefs during the George Floyd uprising.

From my experiences in LA in 1992, I see many advantages to the use of federal troops early. Here are some:

Mass: The US military has lots of soldiers and they can deploy rapidly to any city. I had, on the ground, over a thousand squads (9-person teams). What we have witnessed in the past few days the initial call-up of 500 National Guardsmen in Minnesota and a couple hundred Military Police from Fort Bragg to New York were tokens, too small and too ineffective.

Experienced leaders: The leaders I had in LA had years of training in crisis-action planning and execution. Governors and mayors have nothing like that available to them.

Existing operating chain of command: Never underestimate the value and power of injecting an existing, experienced entire chain of command into a crisis situation. There was no down-time, no learning-curve; we became immediately operational. The governors/mayors had nothing like that available to them and could not put it together.

Communications: Integral to the in-place chain of command was existing communications protocols that were utilized and practiced on a daily basis in training and transferred directly into the LA area of operations. None of this was in place prior to our arrival which made their daily operations difficult to impossible.

Mission: Every leader and soldier understand “mission.” My overall mission statement to Task Force LA was to rapidly create a safe and secure environment for every citizen in LA. Just as important, that mission was picked up by the media, transmitted and understood by the millions of LA residents. Additionally, that overarching mission was filtered down through the chain of command, increasing in specificity to every soldier so that the squad leaders were telling their soldiers that their mission was to maintain complete situational awareness of their assigned area of operation (a street corner, or city block) and be prepared to report any unusual activity and/or the gathering together of a crowd. During recent events across America did anyone hear a mission statement. Did we see an ever-increasing de-escalation of hostilities? Quite the contrary.

Rapid reaction: The troops where on 18-hour shifts throughout the 100 square mile area. Their company and battalion headquarters were nearby in schools and parks. Every headquarters had multiple rapid-reaction forces of varying sizes who were prepared to move immediately to any area where the squad or platoon leader needed back-up. Another capability beyond the locals reach.

“Mission creep” are the two ugliest words in the English language. When left to their own devices, governors/mayors/police chiefs will try a little of this first, then some of that, well that didn’t work let’s try a curfew, and so it unfolded; one failure after another until they find something that works or the looters just grow weary of their efforts. Upon deploying throughout LA during that initial 24-hour period, we were in a forceful, dominant position. Trial and error was not part of out game plan.

To the contrary, what we saw over the past days across America was people dying, businesses destroyed and everyone pointing fingers at the failure of the police to gain control. Trial and error is a process but it rarely works in a crisis because time is the biggest enemy. You don’t have enough of it (time) before the looters roll in for another night of mayhem. I am not implying that political leaders don’t mean well and hope for the best; what I’m saying is, hope is not a process.

Rules of engagement: Day after day during the George Floyd uprising, I could not discern the rules of engagement for the police departments. For the US military, rules of engagement is a given. It’s one of the, “don’t leave home without it” issues. Every soldier must have a complete and thorough understanding of ROE.

I wrote the rules of engagement on the plane in route to LA, called them back to my Chief of Staff who had the printers standing by. They were no seen by a lawyer, not presented for approval to higher authority (time is our enemy) and they also never changed. ROE cannot be vague and ever-changing. Before they were on the streets of LA in 1992, every soldier had a 3×5 card in his/her breast pocket that spelled out in plain, non-legalese verbiage what they could and could not do.

-No crew-served weapons (machine guns) allowed.

-Rifle selector switches will never be set on automatic or 3-round burst mode.

-Bayonets will not be locked onto the rifle.

-Every soldier has the inherent right of self-defense.

-No rounds chambered unless you must fire in self-defense.

-Rifle position one: no round chambered. Magazine full and in place in the rifle. Rifle held with both hands diagonally across the chest with muzzle up (port arms).

-Rifle position two: Rifle at port arms with magazine removed and in ammo pouch.

-Rifle position three: Rifle at sling arms, magazine removed, muzzle up. This is designed to be a less threatening posture but still, if necessary, he/she could unsling the rifle, insert a magazine, lock and load in 5 seconds or less.

-Rifle position four: Rifle at sling arms, magazine removed, muzzle down.

What were the rules of engagement in Minneapolis, New York or Washington DC? Could the general population discern what they were? I think not.

Managing change: Early in the crisis we were operating in 6-hour planning cycles, then to 12, then to 24 and finally to sustainment. As the crisis de-escalated, general orders and ROE rifle positions would be changed. Changes would move down from ONE central source to every soldier in a matter of minutes. Additionally, daily operational orders did not need to be one size fits all. The entire area was divided into identifiable zones that could be easily referenced with specific applicable instructions.

Unity of command is critical: Throughout this latest crisis, the trick has been to sort out what was and was not to be done during the next day by listening to daily media pronouncements from the governor, mayor and chief of police. No unity of command equals confusion, often chaos, and results in little if any progress. On day eight of the rioting in NY city we saw the mayor and chief of police speaking publicly and giving conflicting guidance to the police force.

President Bush did me a tremendous favor by federalizing the CA National Guard. Without that, unity of command would have been very difficult.

Have a clear concept of operations and TTP (tactics, techniques and procedures: The issues we used in Task Force LA were implemented quickly and effectively. Such as:

1. In LA hundreds of CA Highway Patrolmen were on the outskirts of LA waiting for orders. We sent several cars/patrolmen to every fire station. When called out, the patrolmen would provide escort for the firemen and immediately establish a secure perimeter with arrest authority thereby providing firemen the opportunity to do their work.

2. Our directive to the LA police and sheriffs’ deputies was simple; make arrests, transport and process criminals. Period. How many times in the past few days have we seen on TV several police cars with lights and sirens streaming down a street followed by one 10-passenger paddy wagon? Wrong answer. Put large numbers of arrested offenders into city buses along with a couple policemen who were arresting officers. Transport them to a very large (auditorium, sports stadium) facility where the accompanying police can describe the offenses during processing. “Processing” should take 6-8 hours; keep them off the streets. Special attention should be given to those offenders who resisted arrest; jail cells if available.

3. Proactive, proactive, proactive. An experienced, coherent military force will immediately get ahead of the power curve and take the advantage away form the rioters. For example, in LA we had quick reaction forces (QRF) of varying sizes at company, battalion and brigade headquarters all over the 100 square mile area of operation. A call from a squad leader reporting “crowd gathering” would be dealt with in minutes while the “crowd” was likely less than a dozen people vs the normal crowds of hundreds we have been seeing consistently on TV the past few days. LA police and buses were on station with every QRF and routinely accompanies a QRF to take care of arrests.

4. “Peaceful marches”. They were prohibited in the afternoon because the crowd would tend to grow, linger into the evening and move towards a target area for looting. Proactively prohibit that type of behavior.

5. Begin curfews well before dark. The recent New York curfew beginning at 11 p.m. was pure insanity. By then the looters have distributed their cache of weapons, bricks, clubs, etc. and have all the momentum for the remainder of the night.

6. Manage information flow from ONE command headquarters. I was routinely out and about LA at night. At 8 a.m. I hosted a conference call with all the principals; governor, mayor, police chief, sheriff, etc. The intent was to provide a SitRep (situation report) of the previous night’s activities, by sector. Then, describe for them what steps would be taken, by sector, over the next 6 or 12 or 24 hours. That information was the SINGLE SOURCE for their use as they dealt with the media that day. If one of them got off message, my liaison major was to contact me directly and I would deal with it.

It was equally important to manage information up the chain of command. I did this by sending out a daily SITREP to my bosses. They, in turn, may or may not have commented on it and dutifully forwarded it to the service chiefs and the JCS Chairman, Colin Powell. When he came to LA to visit the troops, President Bush kindly told me he had the SITREP delivered to his quarters every morning at 0500 and felt comfortable that he had what he needed to know for the day ahead.

7. Redefine the battle space. In the 7th Infantry Division, we trained hard every day and night to close with and destroy the enemy. The initial priority in LA was to redefine the battlespace where the objective was to create an environment where no one would die. It was remarkably easy. Your soldiers are so well trained, responsible and agile of mind and body, that a chat with their squad leader about the rules of engagement was all it took. By contrast, New York City Mayor De Blasio said, after repeated nights of looting and burning, “When outside armed forces go into communities, no good comes of it. We have seen this for decades.” He went on to explain that, “The National Guard is not trained to handle rampant looters and violent thugs.” Has he been living on the back side of the moon?

My intent was to develop a contrast between what ended up to be a successful, large, complex crisis undertaking in 1992 with deployed federal troops in contrast to the chaos, indecision by governors/mayors in a disastrous situation that has gone on far longer that it should.

My answer to the title question, is yes, federal military forces should be engaged in national civil disturbances crises.

Was Task Force LA perfect? Not by a long shot but then dealing with crisis rarely is. Did we make mistakes? Certainly. But the bottom line is, once our forces deployed and got on the scene no one lost their life and the rioting, looting and burning quickly stopped.
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Marvin Covault, Lt.Gen (Ret) shared this article initially on We The People Speaking blog. Author of VISION TO EXECUTION, a book for leaders.

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Tags: Marvin Covault, Lt.Gen, Should Federal Military Forces, Be Engaged, In A National, Civil Disturbance Crisis To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service and "Like" Facebook Page - Thanks!

Violent Rioting, as in the 1960s, Hurts the Most Disadvantaged

Michael Barone

by Michael Barone: "America is burning. But that's how forests grow." So spoke Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey.

"Riots are an integral part of the country's march towards progress." So read a now-deleted tweet from the Democratic Committee of Fairfax County, Virginia, the affluent Washington suburb with a population of 1 million.

"Please, show me where it says that protesters are supposed to be polite and peaceful," said CNN's Chris Cuomo. He's apparently been too busy interviewing his brother, the governor of New York, to reread the First Amendment, which bars laws abridging "the right of the people peaceably to assemble."

I take a different view. I know how violent rioting -- and that's what we've been seeing, despite media attempts to hide it -- can destroy a city and ruin the lives of its residents.

In the summer of 1967, I was an intern at the Detroit mayor's office when the city suffered a six-day riot during which 43 people died. I was at the mayor's side in the so-called command center soon after nightfall as radio calls came in about police abandoning 1 square mile after another.

The riot finally ended after some 12,000 federal and federalized guard troops restored order. But most of Detroit has never fully recovered, and you can still see the abandoned commercial structures and the residential streets with burned-out houses and hauntingly empty lots.

Downtown and adjacent areas have enjoyed a revival, which I hope will continue. But the lesson is clear. Violent riots destroy people's willingness to invest their lives and money in a city. Those most harmed are those who start off most disadvantaged. Violence and crime are a confiscatory tax on what people would otherwise earn and accumulate over a lifetime.

The combined effects of the COVID-19 lockdowns and the last several days of rioting threaten to destroy the efflorescence of gentrifying central cities which has followed Rudy Giuliani's demonstration in New York City, a quarter-century ago now, of how to reduce and nearly eliminate violent crime. The demonstration these last few days that violent crime can suddenly increase threatens to undo that progress for the next quarter-century.

The short-term political effects are harder to gauge. A Morning Consult poll showed a 58% to 30% majority -- unusual in these polarized times -- supporting "calling in the U.S. military to supplement city police forces." Will President Donald Trump and Republicans benefit from their calls for "law and order," as then-President Richard Nixon and Republicans did in the years after the riots in Detroit and many other cities half a century ago? Maybe, and especially if folks like Healey and those of Fairfax County are seen as representing the Democratic Party.

But unlike Nixon in 1968, Trump in 2020 is the incumbent president, and incumbents' first duty is to maintain order and keep things from spinning out of control. He may be in trouble if voters come to agree that, as Fox News' Tucker Carlson put it in his Monday monologue, no one in authority is keeping order.

The late political scientist Nelson Polsby called 1968 -- with the Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy assassinations, multi-city urban riots, violence outside the Chicago Democratic National Convention -- the most awful election year in American history. So far, 2020 is looking like a competitor for that title.

"The moment has come for our nation to deal with systemic racism," Joe Biden said. Doing so, he might argue, is the only way to get things under control. But one might ask why that moment didn't come earlier, if not in the 36 years he served in the Senate and the eight years he served as an active and involved vice president in the administration of Barack Obama.

The uncomfortable fact is that the election and reelection of the first African American president did not produce the improvement in race relations most Americans surely hoped for.

Quite the contrary. In 2008, a Gallup poll reported that 70% of non-Hispanic whites and 61% of blacks said relations between blacks and whites were very or somewhat good. Gallup showed similar results to that question in seven polls during George W. Bush's presidency.

Feelings deteriorated during Obama's. By 2015, only 45% of non-Hispanic whites and 51% of blacks said relations between the races were good.

One can debate how much of this deterioration was Obama's fault, a subject for another day. But surely, there was a widespread sense of disappointment that black-white relations had not become as harmonious as many expected or hoped. Violent rioting won't help do that any more than they'll grow forests.
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Michael Barone is a Senior Political Analyst for the Washington Examiner and a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel  and co-author of The Almanac of American Politics Shared by Rasmussen Reports.

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Liberal Mush from the Mad Dog

by Patrick Buchanan: It was not Trump who divided America in this racial crisis. The nation was united in revulsion at the criminal cruelty that led to George Floyd’s death… What divided America were the methods and means protesters began using in the first hours of the Minneapolis riot — the attacks on cops with bottles, bricks and Molotov cocktails.

In his statement to The Atlantic magazine, former Defense Secretary General James Mattis says of the events of the last 10 days that have shaken the nation as it has not been shaken since 1968:

“We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers.”

Is “a small number of lawbreakers” an apt description of wilding mobs who have showered cops with bottles, bricks and rocks in 40 cities, looted stores in the hundreds, torched police cars, and injured dozens of Secret Service personnel defending the White House?

Is “a small number of lawbreakers” the way a patriot would describe anti-American anarchists who desecrated the Lincoln Memorial, the World War II Memorial on the Mall and the Korean War Memorial and tried to burn down the Church of the Presidents in Lafayette Square?

Was the sacking of Georgetown, Rodeo Drive in LA, 5th Avenue in New York and 40 city centers, the work of a few “lawbreakers”?

Is that a good description of the people who gravely wounded that cop in Las Vegas and shot four cops and murdered that retired black police chief in St. Louis?

The protesters, says Mattis, are “rightly demanding … Equal Justice Under Law.” This is a “wholesome and unifying demand — one that all of us should be able to get behind.”

But what does the general think of the methods and means the “protesters” have used — the massive civil disobedience, the blocking of streets, the vilification of police, the contempt for curfews. What does the general think of protesters who provide moral cover for insurrection?

“Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people,” says Mattis. Trump “doesn’t even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us.”

But it was not Trump who divided America in this racial crisis.

The nation was united in revulsion at the criminal cruelty that led to George Floyd’s death. The nation was united in backing an enraged people’s right to protest that atrocity.

What divided America were the methods and means protesters began using in the first hours of the Minneapolis riot — the attacks on cops with bottles, bricks and Molotov cocktails.

In Mattis’ statement, one finds not a word of sympathy or support for the police bearing the brunt of mob brutality for defending the communities they serve, while defending the constitutional right of the protesters to curse them as racist and rogue cops.

“Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them,” not to the military, says the general.

Correct. But what happens when mobs run wild to where a governor of New York is denouncing the NYPD for failing to protect the city from anarchy and is threatening to replace the mayor for failing to put down the insurrection.

In July 1967, the 82nd Airborne was sent into Detroit to put down the riot. In 1968, there were federal troops in D.C. to stop the rioting in the wake of Dr. King’s assassination. In the violent protests of the Nixon era, U.S. airborne troops were brought into the basement of the Executive Office Building.

The general quotes James Madison: “America united with a handful of troops, or without a single solider exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign invaders than an America disunited.”

And how, General, did that work out for Madison when the “foreign invaders” arrived in Maryland in August 1814, marched up Bladensburg Road, and burned the Capitol and White House and Alexandria, while “Little Jimmy” fled out the Brookville Road?

If memory serves, it was Gen. Andrew Jackson and the troops he pulled together for the Battle of New Orleans who defeated the British and saved the Union.

“Society cannot exist,” wrote Edmund Burke, “unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without.

“It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.”

That is where we are now. Society and civilization are on the line.

If mob tactics are now how we change laws and alter public policy, the democratic republic is dead and we have gone full Third World.

Some of us do not believe America is a racist society or that the nation’s police, numbering a million men and women, are shot through with anti-black racism.

Some of us believe the police are the last line of defense we have against that “small number of lawbreakers” Mattis tells us are no problem.

Did the general actually produce this pile of mush that reads like something out of Ramsey Clark in the 1960s?

My guess: Mattis, an obedient servant of President Trump for two years, has been persuaded that the wind is blowing the other way and his “place in history” demands that he get himself on the correct side.

The general has just defected to the resistance.
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Patrick Buchanan (@PatrickBuchanan) is currently a blogger, conservative columnist, political analyst, chairman of The American Cause foundation and an editor of The American Conservative. He has been a senior adviser to three Presidents, a two-time candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and was the presidential nominee of the Reform Party in 2000.

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The Great Threat to America -- and to American Jewry

by Caroline Glick: Scattered among the thousands of cellphone videos depicting looting and destruction in the streets of America’s greatest cities are clips of a different sort. In these short videos, we see throngs of white people on their knees, bowing before black people and asking for forgiveness for their “white privilege” and the “structural racism” in the deplorable, irredeemable United States of America.

Earlier this week, presumptive Democratic presidential nominee former vice president Joe Biden symbolically embraced these genuflecting denunciations of “white privilege” as the official position of the Democratic Party. Biden had himself photographed on bended knee with a group of African Americans standing behind him during a visit to a church in Wilmington, Delaware.

These videos point to a socio-political phenomenon that sparked the riots throughout the country following George Floyd’s brutal death at the hands of a Minneapolis police officer. They also make clear the reason that the liberal media in the U.S. continues to back the protests despite the fact that from the outset they have involved wide-scale violence, destruction and looting.

Contrary to the narrative being pushed by the media and America’s elites, the riots are not an consequence of increased police brutality towards African Americans. As Heather McDonald documented this week in the Wall Street Journal, over the past several years, police violence against black people has decreased significantly.

A check-cashing business burns during protests
in Minneapolis (AP/John Minchillo)

The violence we are seeing is a result of the steep radicalization of progressive white Americans. Biden gave voice to this radicalization last summer when, during a campaign appearance in Iowa he said, “We choose truth over facts.”

Last year, political scientist Zach Goldberg published an article in Tablet online magazine where he presented statistical data demonstrating the depth and breadth of the radicalization of white progressives over the past ten years. Goldberg revealed that between 2010-2019, white progressives became the only demographic group in U.S. history to prioritize the interests of other groups over its own interests. White progressives prioritize the advancement of the interests of minorities and immigrants over their own and over those of American society as a whole. Moreover, as Goldberg showed, white progressive positions on race and immigration are more extreme than the positions black, Latino, and Asian progressives hold on these issues.

Goldberg argues that the massive increase in internet usage by white progressives over the past decade is responsible for the radicalization. Online platforms have created an information bubble which has created a warped presentation of reality to those inside the bubble. In this warped reality, race relations are far worse than they are in reality. Hence, those who inhabit this bubble prefer “truth” as presented in the bubble to facts.

Goldberg is undoubtedly correct that the more time people spend inside their internet bubble the more removed they become from objective reality. But internet isn’t the only source of the radicalization. The Obama presidency was also a factor.

When Barack Obama won the presidential race in 2008, many Americans believed his victory was proof the United States had overcome its racist past. Obama however, did not support this view. Throughout his tenure in office, Obama used the power of his position to resonate and legitimize positions on race that until then had been relegated to the leftist margins of American politics.

Obama cultivated the view that far from being a post-racial society, America is inherently racist and that American racism is structural – that is, it was baked in and impossible to overcome. In so doing, Obama gave credence to the false claim at the heart of the riots: that black Americans are under continuous, existential threat from the state as a whole and from law enforcement bodies first and foremost. Calls by Hollywood celebrities and Obama administration alumni to defund the police take this view to its logical endpoint.

A third cause of the radicalization of white progressives is the higher education system. The more radicalized campuses are, the more radicalized graduates become.

Protesters breaking curfew react as New York Police Department officers move in to
make arrests on Fifth Avenue, Thursday, June 4, 2020, in New York

The radicalization of white progressive politics has been given its most dramatic expression in the refusal of progressive mayors and governors to act forthrightly to end the violence in their streets. Instead, we had the likes of New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio (whose daughter arrested for participating in the mayhem), stand with those burning his city.

In a letter to police sergeants in the New York Police Department, Ed Mullen, President of the Sergeants Benevolent Association gave expression to the distress of New York police officers. “I know we are losing our city,” Mullen wrote.

“We have no leadership, no direction, and no plan. I know that you are being held back and used as pawns,” he continued.

He then asked the sergeants to hold the line.

“Remember,” he added, “you work for a higher authority.”

For American Jews, the violent riots constitute a challenge on several levels. First there is the challenge of squaring their political identity with their Jewish identity. As the 2014 Pew survey of American Jews showed, around half of American Jews identify as progressives. As progressives, many American Jews share the views of their non-Jewish progressive counterparts regarding the need to prioritize the interests of minority communities over their own interests.

But the Jews’ progressive desire to work on behalf of those demonstrating for African Americans places their political identity on a collision course with their Jewish identity. Black Lives Matter, the radical group leading the demonstrations, is an anti-Semitic organization. BLM was formed in 2014 as a merger of activists from the anti-Semitic Nation of Islam, the anti-Semitic Black Panthers and Dream Catchers. In 2016, BLM published a platform that has since been removed from its website. The platform accused Israel of committing “genocide” and referred to the Jewish state as an “apartheid” state. The platform accused Israel and its supporters of pushing the U.S. into wars in the Middle East. The platform also officially joined BLM with the anti-Semitic BDS campaign to boycott, divest and sanction Israel. BDS campaign leader Omar Barghouti acknowledged this week that the goal of the BDS campaign is to destroy Israel. BDS campaigns on U.S. campuses are characterized by bigotry and discrimination directed against Jewish students.

A demonstrator holds a sign during a Black Lives Matter protest.

BLM’s platform’s publication was greeted with wall-to-wall condemnations by Jewish organizations from across the political spectrum. But today, Jewish progressive are hard-pressed to turn their backs on the group, despite its anti-Semitism. As white progressives, they believe they must fight America’s “structural racism” even at the cost of empowering social forces that reject their civil rights as Jews. As Jews, they feel that their rights should be protected. One progressive Jew tried to square the circle writing in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal, “Today Jews need to support Black Lives Matter; tomorrow we can talk about Israel.”

As white progressives radicalized over the past decade, radical Jewish progressives built a formidable Jewish organizational framework whose mission is to advance the progressive revolution. They have worked to recast Judaism itself as the apotheosis of progressive revolutionary ideals under the banner of “tikkun olam.”

Last week Tablet published a twenty-thousand word essay titled “Bend the Jews,” on Bend the Arc, the flagship organization spawned by those efforts.

Bend the Arc first rose to the attention of the general public in 2018 in the wake of the massacre of worshippers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. The organization quickly put out a statement blaming President Donald Trump for the massacre. When Trump came to the congregations to pay his respects, Bend the Arc organized demonstrations against him.

Bend the Arc may not have members. But it has an annual budget of tens of millions of dollars. $28 million of its budget comes from three non-Jewish foundations which have no other foothold in Jewish organizational life. On the other hand, one of the funders, the Rockefeller Foundation is well known for its generous support for radical anti-Israel and BDS groups.

To achieve its goal of reshaping the world views of American Jews, among other things, Bend the Arc trains Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist rabbinical students. It also pays the salaries of associate rabbis in various communities. With many synagogues long steeped in financial crisis due to dwindling membership, Bend the Arc’s ability to pay rabbis makes its involvement with synagogue hiring an attractive option for many communities. This is doubly true for synagogues whose members are progressive.

As progressive politics paralyze Jews from acting against anti-Semites in their political camp, levels of anti-Semitic sentiment among white progressives are rising. As Goldberg reported, as white progressives became radicalized on issues related to minorities and immigration, they also turned against Israel. Today white progressives are hostile to Israel. And Goldberg argued that while they express support for Jews, “their sympathy toward and concern for Jews has become more conditional.”

What is it conditioned on? On Jews not being opposed by blacks or other minorities that are considered by white progressives to be less privileged than Jews are.

Orthodox men pass New York City police guarding a Brooklyn synagogue.

On the burning streets of America today, leftist Jew-hatred is on clear display. Although New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio has prevented New York police from taking firm action against looters and arsonists, he did instruct them to use all necessary force to prevent ultra-Orthodox Jewish children from going to school. Earlier this week police in Brooklyn chased a group of Hassidic children and their mothers off a playground in Williamsburg.

Even worse, synagogues have been vandalized in New York and Los Angeles. According to Yeshiva World News, 75% of Jewish-owned stores in an Orthodox enclave of Beverly Hills were looted last weekend. Graffiti in Los Angeles made clear that the businesses and neighborhoods were targeted deliberately because they are Jewish.

Between BLM’s establishment in 2014 and the publication of its platform in 2016, anti-Israel activists went to great lengths to create an utterly false conceptual linkage between the Palestinians and African Americans. Today, anti-Israel activists in the U.S. have stepped up their efforts to capitalize on the riots. Anti-Israel activists in Bethlehem painted a picture of George Floyd wearing a khaffiyeh and draped in a Palestinian flag on the separation barrier. Photos of the picture are being heavily promoted on social media.

Democrats believe the riots will wreck President Trump’s reelection hopes. Polls this week indicate that at least in the short term, the unrest is hurting Trump’s chances of being reelected. Then again, it’s possible the chaos in the streets will strengthen public support for President Trump who voters may view as the last bulwark separating them from national destruction.

Whether Trump wins or loses in November, the radicalization of white progressives at the heart of the mayhem represents the greatest short and long-term threat to social cohesion in America. It also represents the greatest threat to the communal future of American Jewry, to relations between the American Jewish community and the rest of the Jewish world, and to U.S.-Israel relations.
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Caroline Glick is the Senior Contributing Editor of Israel Hayom and the Director of the David Horowitz Freedom Center's Israel Security Project. For more information on Ms. Glick's work, visit carolineglick.com.

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Fanning the Flames . . .

. . . Joe Biden continues to fan the hate and division against Trump along with other deep staters like Retired Gen Mattis.

Editorial Cartoon by AF "Tony" Branco

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Counting the Cost

by Kerby Anderson: What has been the cost of the coronavirus and the subsequent lockdown? We usually hear pundits talking about the lives lost and the jobs lost. But there is another way to understand how much has been lost.

Christopher Roach reminds us that “Life is Risky” by providing a few responses to the argument that everything must be done to “save just one life.” He reminds us that we do not save every life now because it would be destructive. The moment you get in a car, you are taking a risk. He also adds that trying to save lives from one particular threat may increase the risks from others. We may use up resources that could be deployed against other risks. Currently we worry about the coronavirus and generally ignore the 83,000 who die of diabetes and the 67,000 who die of drug overdoses.

He suggests one way to evaluate the cost/benefit of the national lockdown. He starts with 20 million Americans who have lost their jobs (though the latest number is 40 million). Multiply that by the average income of $50,000/year. You get an economic loss of $1 trillion. Add to that $2 trillion in stimulus bills (though the final total will be three times that). Then add the loss in paper wealth in the form of retirement accounts. He comes up with a loss in excess of $5 trillion, though I suspect the amount is twice that.

He then applies these very low estimates to the assumption that the lockdown saved 100,000 lives. That would still mean that the government’s actions are 5 times higher than the benefit. If you assume it saved 10,000 lives, then it is 50 times higher.

As you can see, the cost/benefit ratio is quite high. This cost shouldn’t be ignored when debating the lockdown and the reopening of the economy.
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Kerby Anderson @KerbyAnderson) is an author, lecturer, visiting professor and radio host and contributor on nationally syndicated Point of View and the "Probe" radio programs.

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Abortion in Arkansas Hits 43-Year Low

by Arkansas Family Council: On Monday the Arkansas Department of Health released its annual reports on the number of abortions performed in the state.

The reports show that 2,963 abortions occurred in Arkansas in 2019.

Family Council President Jerry Cox released a statement saying, “Arkansas’ abortion numbers haven’t been this low since 1977. The fact that Arkansas’ abortion numbers continue to fall year after year is really good news.”

Cox said the number of abortions performed in Arkansas have been cut by more than half since the 1990s. “In 1991 there were nearly 7,000 abortions in Arkansas. Teen abortion fell to record lows last year. Across the board, abortion is on the decline in Arkansas.”

Cox said the reports show Arkansas’ informed-consent laws have helped women choose options besides abortion. “Arkansas has excellent laws that require abortionists to give women all the facts about abortion up front, including abortion’s risks, consequences, and alternatives. They also have to give women time to consider all options before making a final decision. We estimate from these reports that more than 500 women chose not to have abortions last year after receiving this information.”

Cox said his group will continue working to end abortion in Arkansas. “Arkansans are overwhelmingly pro-life. Public opinion polling shows most Arkansans believe abortion ought to be either completely illegal or legal only under certain circumstances. In the past five years the Arkansas Legislature has enacted more than two dozen good, pro-life laws. These reports from the Department of Health simply go to show that all of that pro-life work is paying off.”
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Jerry Cox is President of the Family Council in Arkansas.

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Protests, Not Religious Services, Okay In NYC

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio

by Bill Donohue: “Anyone who tries to get in the water, they’ll be taken right out of the water.” That’s what New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio recently said about his corona virus policy. Who will take them out of the ocean? The cops. Can there be beach parties? Not unless everyone is at least six feet away from each other. If they are not, the cops will get them as well.

What if the beach-goers swell to the thousands and take to the streets, standing arm-in-arm, to protest racial injustice? Is that okay? Yes. Shouldn’t the cops enforce social distancing? No, not at all. What if the protesters get violent? No problem, the cops will go easy.

What if, instead of protesting, a very small group of people want to go to a church, synagogue, mosque, or temple? They don’t want to protest, just pray. They pledge to stay six feet apart. They promise not to engage in violence. Can they do so? No.

This is the mentality of Bill de Blasio, formerly known as Warren de Blasio-Wilhelm, and before that Warren Wilhelm, Jr. His inconsistent identity is not typical of his policies. He is very consistent there.

When a reporter for a Jewish newspaper asked him how he can justify throngs taking to the streets in a mass assembly, but cannot approve of a small church service, he got indignant. “Four hundred years of American racism, I’m sorry, that is not the same question as the understandably aggrieved store owner or the devout religious person who wants to go back to services.”

In other words, de Blasio decided to “privilege” protesters, many of whom suffer the pangs of “white privilege” (it is not the sons and daughters of the working class who are trashing the city), all because he thinks that protesting racism justifies jettisoning his shutdown.

What if the object of the protest was his racism? He has repeatedly promoted policies that discriminate against Asian Americans by denying them their earned seats in New York’s elite public schools. He likes racial quotas. His contempt for these “people of color” surely merits a protest. Would he allow it?

Would he allow black and Hispanic parents to protest his racism? Many minorities want school choice, and they overwhelmingly favor charter schools. Private, parochial, and charter public schools are doing more to promote upward social mobility than the public schools ever have. Why does he always seek to deny black and brown New Yorkers the same avenue to success that white rich people have? Would he give the green light to a protest against his racially discriminatory policies?

As for religious services, we know where his heart is. This is a man who raised money for the communists in Nicaragua when he was young, and traveled, illegally, to Castro’s Cuba for his honeymoon, lying to his own children about where it took place (he told them it was in Canada). This is not the biography of a man of faith.

De Blasio boycotted the St. Patrick’s Day Parade for years because he did not like the house rules for marching, and refused to criticize the owner of the Empire State Building for refusing to light the towers in blue and white in honor of Mother Teresa’s centenary. More recently, he lashed out at Rev. Franklin Graham—who brought medical staff to Central Park to attend to coronavirus patients—because the minister thinks marriage should be between a man and a woman.

This is the profile of an extremist. He throws the health of New Yorkers overboard to allow for a jammed protest he likes, and then invokes his health edict to ban people of faith from attending their house of worship. No wonder he is increasingly viewed with contempt.

Contact the mayor’s communications director, Wiley Norvell: wnorvell@cityhall.nyc.gov
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Bill Donohue (@CatholicLeague) is a sociologist and president of the Catholic League.

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Why Conservatives Should Be Leading the Civil Rights Movement

Kay Coles James 

by Virginia Allen and Lauren Evans: “Conservatives should be leading the civil rights movement,” says Kay C. James, president of The Heritage Foundation.

James joins the “Problematic Women” podcast to explain that the answers to many of the issues plaguing the African American community, such as poverty, lack of access to good health care, and poor education systems, are issues conservatives have the viable solutions for.

We also talk with sisters Deana Bass Williams and Dee Dee Bass Wilbon, co-founders of Bass Public Affairs, about how America can move forward together after the killing of George Floyd and why prayer is truly our most powerful tool right now. And, as always, we crown our Problematic Woman of the Week.

Listen to the podcast below or read the lightly edited transcript.


Virginia Allen: We are joined by Kay Coles James, the president of The Heritage Foundation, founder of the Gloucester Institute, author, wife, mother, and our favorite problematic woman. Mrs. James, thanks so much for being here today.

Kay Coles James: It is my absolute pleasure. This is my favorite podcast and I don’t say that in any gratuitous way just for you.

Allen: Mrs. James, thank you so much. That is so incredibly kind of you to say. We’re going to have to put that in quotes and maybe put it up on a wall somewhere.

Well, you have had a very busy few days celebrating your birthday on Monday, chairing the National Coronavirus Recovery Commission meeting Tuesday, and then the Women’s Suffrage Centennial Commission meeting Wednesday, and all while still leading The Heritage Foundation.

Mrs. James, how do you do it all?

James: Well, I do it by having a great breakfast every morning, having a time of meditation and prayer, keeping up with geriatric yoga. It keeps me going.

Lauren Evans: I love that. We all have to have our ways to really relax and unwind.

So, Mrs. James, this week Axios ran the headline: “Coronavirus is old news,” and yet the virus is still here, people are still suffering, and many businesses are still closed.

You’re getting ready to release the final report of the National Coronavirus Recovery Commission with more than 250 recommendations. Why are you so passionate about this issue and what can we expect from the commission’s report?

James: I’m passionate about it because this virus has attacked our country in two ways. First and foremost, with the loss of lives and the health impact that it’s had on so many. And also with the loss of many livelihoods.

If this country stays shut down too much longer, the impact that it would have, the long-term impact that it would have on our economy would be devastating.

So I’m passionate because I love this country and I don’t want to see a virus or anything else destroy her.

So we work and so we work long and so we work hard and I am so pleased with all the individuals from The Heritage Foundation and those individuals who are on the commission who have put in more hours than I can even imagine to get this done in a timely way so that it would be helpful to the president and Congress and governors and mayors all across this country.

Allen: Mrs. James, we’re so thankful for all of the work that you’re doing and [that] The Heritage Foundation is doing on the commission. [It] really is just so inspirational to see.

Now, I do want to shift for just a minute and let’s discuss what’s going on today, right now. We’re at such a pivotal moment in America’s history as we grieve the loss of George Floyd, and we’ve asked ourselves some really difficult questions about racism in America.

You’ve put forward a call to action for Americans and conservatives in particular to really step up right now. How can we each make a difference?

James: I have. And one of the reasons that I have is because for years, not just in the last few days, but for years, I have said that the answers to poverty, the answers to an an unequal educational system in our country, the answer to access to health care, the answer to protecting our borders, all of those answers rely within the conservative movement.

When I look at those protesters that are on the street, I just want to shout at them that if you would take a minute and stop and listen to the voices coming from the conservative side of the aisle, we have real answers.

They’re not pandering answers. We don’t pander, and we don’t do identity politics, and we don’t shape a message just to get a vote. We have real answers for real problems.

I think that’s why it’s so important to me that at this moment, at this moment in our country’s history, conservatives step up and say, “Yes, I see the problem. I am understanding it perhaps in even new and different ways than I ever have before. And I want to walk with those individuals who love America, are willing to lay down their lives for this country.”

We do. We love this nation. And in spite of what some people think, pointing out that there are things that we need to fix in this country is not the same as equating that this country is a racist nation. It is not. I have never said it. I will never say it.

I believe that the Founders gave us a gift, a gift of a form of government that allows us to work through our problems to fix them. No other country on the Earth, none is as exceptional as this nation.

What we need to understand is that to point out our flaws and say, “Let’s, together, fix them” does not mean we hate America or we distrust our leaders or that we are not supportive of our institutions. And that’s why I’m so passionate about this.

I believe that we, as conservatives, have the keys to all of the issues that are so important to those people out on the streets, and we have to step up and tell them, guide them, lead them.

It reminds me of when I used to say years ago that I believe that pro-life women should lead the feminist movement because we are more feminist than the so-called feminist leaders. We actually believe that we don’t have to mutilate our bodies or kill our babies in order to be equal to any man.

Today, I feel like conservatives should be leading the civil rights movement, we’re the only ones who do understand individual liberty, extreme inequality. We shouldn’t shy away from it. It’s our the movement to lead.

Evans: Wow. I have goosebumps.

You wrote in an op-ed for Fox, “During my 70 years on this Earth, I have lived through the civil rights movement, I’ve seen the highs and lows of this country, I have seen America’s goodness, and I’ve seen its hatred.”

Can you tell us about your own personal experience as part of the civil rights movement?

James: Ah, yes. Oliver Hill was a great civil rights attorney and he was my cousin. I’ve seen him have crosses burned on his lawn. I personally integrated the schools in the South and had to walk past angry mobs yelling names at me as we tried to get equal access to education.

I know what it’s like, even today, to have a grandson and a granddaughter. Incidentally, both of my kids in Northern Virginia have experienced racial slurs at school and had to come home and ask what they meant. And I fought hard so that my grandchildren would not have to experience that.

And for anybody … who wants to say that there’s not racism in America today, all they have to do is scroll through some of the comments section on Facebook posts and Twitter and it’s there, it’s there.

So we have to stand against that as conservatives, we have the moral authority to stamp against that as conservatives, and at the same time, not blink an eye about our love and our commitment to this nation.

The two are not mutually exclusive. I don’t know why so many people have a hard time with that.

I explained it to a friend recently by saying, I am a mama bear. I love my children and my grandchildren with a passion equal to any mom or grandma on the planet. But daggum it, I do have to correct them. I do have to tell them when they are doing things wrong, and it’s not in spite of the fact that I love them, it’s because I love them that I want to shape them to greatness.

It is my love and my passion for this country that compelled me to want to see the American ideal achieved, to see what the Founders, when they sat in those hot crowded rooms and drafted our documents, and they had this vision for what a great country could look like. And it’s my duty as an American to live every day to make that dream a reality for all of us.

Allen: Wow, thank you, Mrs. James. Like you mentioned, tragically, we are seeing that racism, it is still an issue in America today, in our country that we love so dearly. How are you personally processing the death of George Floyd?

James: The video is—I didn’t watch it for a very long time. I knew it would take me to an emotional place that I just didn’t want to go. And as a result of that, I stood shielded from it for a while, but then I decided I owed it to his family and to his legacy to actually watch it. I couldn’t close my eyes and stick my head in the sand.

I think what people are missing is that whatever the individual circumstances in this case, it was in fact a tipping point for many Americans. And I think we’ll know more and we’ll learn more, we’ll see that. But for me, I understand the anger. I understand the frustration.

I understand that there are those individuals who want to take advantage of that for their own personal gain and for their own personal causes.

I am convinced that what we see happening on the streets in our country today, as people are burning and looting and maiming, that has nothing to do with the untimely death on the streets of Minneapolis of that black man with four officers standing nearby.

The two are almost disconnected, but we know that there are those individuals who want chaos, who want to see race wars in this country. And they’re using it to their advantage.

More often than not the peaceful protesters have gone home by the time that sort of behavior erupts. We have to stand against them. It does no good, it does not help the cause one bit.

I think every thoughtful person in America, if they could, would stand between those looters, would stand between those who want to bring chaos and destruction and push them back, hold them back.

I would love to go out there if I could and say, “We know who you are. We see you. You want to destroy America. We want to build her up.”

The death of that gentleman and the rioting and what’s going on are so separate, such distinct and different issues. It’s opportunistic blacks and opportunistic whites who have taken to the street to use it. But do not miss that even with those individuals out there, trying to take the focus away from the real issues, that there are real issues that need to be dealt with, but not that way.

Evans: Mrs. James, there is so much hurt and you watched these protests and when you’re speaking to your children and you’re speaking to your grandchildren, how do you even begin to address this issue? And then what is their response about this moment in history?

James: Well, let’s start the conversation with, I tell them if I ever see you doing something like that, I will personally come there and yank you off those streets. That’s the first thing.

And I want to teach them the history of how we bring about change in this country. I want to teach them about the systems that the Founders have put in place in order to address grievances. In terms of the process, I mean, let’s be clear, those that are yelling, “No justice, no peace,” could we get justice and opportunity to work?

So I want to teach my kids and I want to teach my grandchildren how you bring about social change, how you bring about justice.

People talk about protests all the time. What is it—every Jan. 22 when we marched down the streets to protest abortion in America. Peaceful protest is as American as apple pie. I have no problem with that. I have a huge problem with those individuals who want to usurp peaceful protest to destroy my country and my communities.

We need to figure out how to shut them down, lock them up, and treat them as the criminals they are.

You know, somebody said on one of these platforms the other day, “Oh, you’re just doing damage control now, you never spoke like that before.”

I have always said that. That’s not new. I have been saying it for 50 years. I said it when we were protesting back in the ’60s, violence and criminal behavior should never be tolerated. What is so hard to understand about that?

Allen: Yeah. Mrs. James, many African Americans in this country have said that they feel extremely nervous around police, especially when it comes to being stopped when driving. A few years ago, Sen. Tim Scott said that he was stopped while driving seven times in just one year. Did you have experiences in your own or your family’s life related to this?

James: Oh, my gosh. Yes. Oh, my word.

I think people feel that because, as a black conservative, I don’t wear race on my sleeve and I often don’t even talk about it there are other issues that have been a priority, life issues, protecting our country’s national defense, I am upset about the debt. I mean, race is [an] issue … on my list, but I don’t often talk about it. And the moment I do, it makes them nervous.

But by golly, my son and my daughter were visiting a white friend, driving through a neighborhood and were reported by the police and stopped and taken out of the car, placing their hands on the hood of a car and questioned as to why they were there.

We don’t make this stuff up. It’s real and it happens.

I should add that years later, out of a sense of irony, our family moved into that neighborhood and found many wonderful people there as neighbors who we love dearly. So both are true. Both are true.

Evans: Mrs. James, many conservatives are fearful of discussing and tackling racism. And I think the left kind of invades that space since conservatives are fearful about even talking about it because of the thought and the word policing.

So what is helpful and what’s not helpful for people to say and what resources would you recommend conservatives turn to to have these conversations?

James: The first resource I would recommend is the Holy Scriptures. There’s more guidance there about how we should treat each other than anywhere else. And it’s a good guide, by the way.

The other thing I would say is that I have been told in recent days, “Kay, you shouldn’t talk about these things. It plays into the left’s narrative.” And my response is it’s only their narrative because we gave it to them. It should be our narrative, take it back, make it our narrative.

We as a party stand for all the right things, the conservative movement. And so don’t hesitate to engage in these conversations. They belong to us. They don’t belong on the left.

The other thing that I would say is that talking about race, and I said this to several of my white friends one night when we were sitting around having a great conversation and the conversation turned to race, and I said, could we please talk about movies or books or almost anything because that conversation is so extremely painful and it’s painful to both sides.

And as human beings, we typically avoid pain, but sometimes you got to pull the scab off so the wound can heal. And so sometimes we’ve got to have those difficult and painful conversations.

I am grateful for my friends who over the years have allowed me to process all of this, who stood beside me, who are my brothers and sisters in Christ. I am grateful for their friendship and they have listened and learned and they said, “I don’t see what you see. I’ve not walked in your shoes, but I want to know, and I want to understand.”

So one of the first things that I would say is, please don’t shut us down and say, “I don’t want to hear about race anymore.” Please don’t shut us down and say, “I don’t believe that there is a problem today anymore.”

Listen, listen, so that we together can heal. I’ve lived long enough that I know, listen to some of these young folks out there.

They don’t understand how far we’ve come. They can’t celebrate our victories because I lived through the segregated water fountains and the segregated lunch counters at the segregated school. I lived through that movement and I can see the progress.

I thankfully have lived long enough to see that the America that I loved provided a means and a pathway forward, but I am also not blind to what exists today. And it’s OK to talk about it. And when you do it doesn’t mean that you hate America. It means that you celebrate who we are as Americans and the gift that we’ve been given.

Allen: Mrs. James, thank you so much for your time. We really, really appreciate it.
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Virginia Allen (@Virginia_Allen5 is a news producer for The Daily Signal. She is the co-host of The Daily Signal Podcast and Problematic Women. Lauren Evans (@laurenelizevans) is the multimedia manager for The Daily Signal and The Heritage Foundation.

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